Via time
The first thespian in Marvel film history to be nominated at the three major film ceremonies: the Academy Awards, the BAFTAs and the Golden Globe awards, Angela Bassett continued to create history with her win at the Golden Globes on 11th January 2023 for Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture. Playing Queen Ramonda of Wakanda in the emotional and epic sequel Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Angela Bassett brings the gravitas of the grand leader and unites it with her maternal warmth and compassion as well as, heart-wrenching grief and rage.
A master of the screen, Angela Bassett commands our attention with ease, her overflowing charisma making us immediately lean in, wanting to hear her every word and see her every move; the slight shift of her brow as she listens to the Elders in the throne room, the subtle crease of her eyes as she looks at her on-screen daughter Shuri (Letitia Wright), the small curve of her lips as she greets the children at Nakia’s (Lupita N’yongo) school in Haiti. Many admirers of Angela Bassett refer to the scene depicting her pained fury at the loss of her daughter Shuri as one of her stand-out scenes in the film. The scene chills you, makes you feel the loss of a child after already losing one already and how that informs Queen Ramonda’s grief-stricken wrath.
Via CNN
I would like to point towards her more light-hearted scenes, particularly in the first half of the film after encountering Namor for the first time. Bassett plays Queen Ramonda with a humorous exasperation at everyone’s inability to provide adequate solutions. She makes a conflicted face at Okoye’s suggestion to bring Shuri onto the field which earned a small chuckle from me, reminding me of my sister trying to talk my own mother into letting me go to parties in high school.
Bassett’s Queen Ramonda is a woman of multiple layers, and while she is composed and regal as Queen, in lighter scenes, she imbues an unexpected comic element to her character before baring her own vulnerabilities with both Shuri and Okoye, the former during their talk about overcoming grief by embracing it and the latter when she lets herself go in the airship back from the UN, showing the mourning mother and tired woman behind the crown.
In terms of choosing these roles, Bassett notes that she is “just personally [drawn]to women who are compassionate, confident, resilient, powerful, strong [and]vulnerable.” Of course, these are all traits that we can attribute as an audience to Angela Bassett herself, who is a titan of the screen.
Winning her second Golden Globe 29 years after her 1994 win for What’s Love Got to Do With It, Angela Bassett has blessed our screens beyond any other and deserves all the flowers and recognition she gets.
And with upcoming film projects like Damsel and Wildwood, as well as ongoing procedural drama 9-1-1, we are honoured to be graced by the presence of Angela Bassett on a daily basis, and look forward to seeing what comes next.
Watch Angela Bassett win Best supporting Actress at the 2023 Golden Globe awards via NBC:
